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I found a website that compares cancer cells to normal cells. Cancer cells and normal cells have many obvious differences that scientists have already discovered such as growth (cancer cells don't stop growing, whereas normal cells do), maturation (cancer cells constantly reproduce, not leaving enough time for the cell to mature) and invasiveness (cancer cells invade nearby tissue). I found this article helpful because it is very important to know the differences between a normal cell and a cancer cell.

https://www.verywell.com/cancer-cells-vs-normal-cells-2248794

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Meghan T

2/23/2018 01:16:40 pm

https://listverse.com/2013/09/18/10-fascinating-facts-about-cancer/

The article above describes 10 different, interesting facts about cancer. The ones that stood out to me the most were #10: The Unwilling Pedophile (featuring a man with a tumor in his brain that caused him to have strong sexual desires) and #6: Teratomas (featuring a 3-day old baby with a tiny foot, hand, and thigh as a tumor in his brain). According to the google dictionary, a teratoma is a "tumor composed of tissues not normally present at the site". In this baby's case, the tumor was composed of hand, feet, and thigh tissues, and the 'site' was the brain.

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n

2/23/2018 05:25:09 pm

The cell cycle is regulated by chemicals which allow the cell cycle to continue at each stop. The main regulator is called cyclin and there are cyclins for each phase in interphase and one for mitosis. The cyclin activates cyclin dependent kinases and it allows the cell cycle to continue. This is important because this process makes sure nothing is wrong during the process

Cancer is the abnormal division of cells, meaning the cells don’t stop at their given checkpoints and divide rapidly. An example could be leukemia, cancer of white blood cells, also known as blood cancer. White blood cells are responsible for fighting infection, so the abnormal versions leukemia produces do not function the same way normal white blood cells do. These continuously dividing cells will start crowding the normal blood cells; this makes it hard for the body to fight off infections, control bleeding, or simply transporting oxygen. 2 examples of major classifications would be acute and chronic leukemia. Acute leukemia need fast and aggressive treatment, because the abnormal white blood cells are dividing much faster than it would usually under leukemia conditions. Chronic leukemia is developed slowly over a long period of time. At first, these may not cause any noticeable symptoms but if it’s left untreated in can develop into acute leukemias.

As we have been learning, cancer is not something that is easily treatable. But can naked mole rats aid in our creation of a cure? Evidently so, as this week I have found a very interesting video from a few years ago about the strange phenomenon that is the naked mole rat. Naked mole rats, unlike most other small rodents which typically have a lifespan of about five years, can live up to 30 years. Stranger yet, out of all the naked mole rats kept in labs and studied around the world, not once have they ever been observed to develop cancer. Even after mole rat cells were covered in carcinogens, a tumor did not develop. One possible explanation for this could be that naked mole rats have a chemical called hyaluronan that builds up between cells and prevents tumor growth, and although humans also have the chemical between our cells the mole rat's version is five times longer than ours. After scientists shortened the length of the rat's hyaluronan the animal started developing tumors. Another possible explanation as to why they don't develop tumors is that naked mole rats have special ribosomes that consist of three separate parts instead of the usual two and therefore their ribosomes may be better at translating DNA into proteins. I find it interesting to see how scientists can- and must- use animals to help them solve their problems.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxCXyVtN-_E)

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Anumita J.

2/23/2018 09:43:54 pm

This reminds me of a book I read named My Sister's Keeper. In the book the main character's sister (Kate) has leukemia and she's had it since she was little. The main character (Anna) was conceived in a test tube to be an exact bone marrow match for Kate. Throughout the book we see how Anna's whole life has been about donating things from her body to help Kate fight the leukemia. We also see the impact of cancer in each character's daily life. Reading this book helped me understand the type of strain having cancer puts on the patient and the family as well as some of the difficulties they face. It also made me realize the amount of transfusions, transplants and treatments a cancer patient needs in order to get into remission. The use of Anna as a genetic match, made me wonder if it is possible to take a cancer patients stem cells and create some of the things a patient may need for healing rather than being reliant on another person who is a genetic match.

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Shridula K

2/24/2018 08:12:21 am

A couple of years ago, I read a book called Me, Earl and the Dying Girl for an assignment that I had to do in school. In the book, the main character Greg becomes friends with Rachel, who has acute myeloid leukemia, which is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells. Myeloid is the tissue of the bone marrow, and as I did more research on this cancer, I found that it is caused by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood. Just like most other cancers, the symptoms include fatigue, but also easy bruising, bleeding, and an increased risk of infection. This cancer progresses really quickly, and is fatal within weeks or months if the patient doesn't treat it.

In 2014, there was a huge craze about the book and movie adaptation of "The Fault in Our Stars". The story features a girl named Hazel who has been diagnosed with lung cancer (stage 4 thyroid) and a boy named Augustus, who is an amputee due to his osteosarcoma (bone cancer). The two meet at a cancer support group and their love story kicks off from there. This story touches me due to the fact that 2 people are suffering from cancer, the worse thing possible, but are able to find love and happiness. The story brought out many emotions from audiences whether from the book or movie. It's nice to see the media touch upon such topic in a endearing way. Alongside with that, Hazel, one of the main characters had been inspired by a real life patient by the name of Esther Earl. Furthermore, a few years later, a couple dubbed as "Real-life 'Fault in Our Stars' Couple" had made headlines for their incredible love story. Unfortunately, they both passed around the same time as one another in 2016.

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Poonam S

2/24/2018 01:23:16 pm

Although benign tumors usually are not a problem, they can be if they press on blood vessels or nerves. Some types of benign tumors can cause certain problems. For example, a Fibroma can cause bladder problems or pelvic pain and Meningiomas can cause personality changes and seizures. This is why it is so important to go to he doctor about benign tumors as well as malignant ones. On this website, it lists the most common benign tumors and the effects they may have.

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/benign-tumors-causes-treatments#1

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Timothy I.

2/24/2018 03:39:34 pm

https://www.scq.ubc.ca/cancer-a-comic-strip-the-adventures-of-crafty-uncontrolled-mutant-cells/
In this humorous comic, the process of how cancer forms and develops is depicted through pictures and words. It goes over how proteins are important in reading our DNA, and how the process of apoptosis is disrupted by mutations in DNA. It describes what cancer cells do to multiply rapidly, and how they convince other cells to help them in their growth.

The Canadian Cancer Society is a charitable organization dedicated in raising awareness and fundraising for cancer research in Canada. This website provide access to information about the different types of cancer and methods of diagnosis and treatment. It is also a great tool to find opportunities to participate in the community for the greater good. For those who are suffering or knows someone suffering from cancer, the website provides services and resources for help, such as financial help, connections who's been there, wigs, transportation, etc to help people living with cancer. It also gives opportunities to support the organization, advocate, -and volunteer in regards to the organization's mission to put an end to cancer and improve the lives of who live with cancer.

In this article, scientists utilized characteristics only cancer cells would display and then use that to their advantage to deliver the drug effectively only in tumor areas. What happens is a gel-like medium is injected into the body, and then forms into a gel (so doesn't break down). Since cancer cells produce more ROS (reactive oxygen species or a byproduct of cell metabolism), a special agent in the gel reacts to the ROS and then the gel breaks down - releasing therapeutic agents. What's really interesting about this is that since the gel is only released near cancerous cells, the damage dealt by the agents are more focused on tumors while being less harmful for normal cells. Scientists even combined immunotherapy and chemotherapy by releasing the chemotherapy agent first to weaken the cancer cell and then the immune checkpoint inhibitor (disables checkpoint protein PD-L1), which enables T-cells to kill cancer cells. This only has been tested on B16F10 melanoma and 4T1 breast cancer, but I believe that once further research is done, this gel can be used on other types of cancer, reducing irrelevant cell damage and increasing the effectiveness of the therapeutic agents on tumors.

This weeks topic of cancer prompted me to look more into breast cancer because someone I knew was affected by it. I found an article that intrigued me, about false-positive MRI tests for breast cancer in women. Breast cancer research on the difference between false-positive tests with MRI's and DM/DBT screenings showed that there was a higher rate of false results from non-malignant tissue change with MRI's than with DM/DBT tests. The difference being 40% chance false-positive results for MRI's and 18% chance with DM/DBT 's.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180223151855.htm
Scientists at the university of California, Riverside have found a way for paclitaxel (a chemotherapy medication) to target metastasized cells, and stop cancer from spreading. They did this by getting the paclitaxel to piggyback on the agent 123B9 which targets an oncogene (a mutated gene that may cause cancer) called EphA2. EphA2 causes cancer cells to metastasize, so once paclitaxel binds to the EphA2 receptors, EphA2 acts as a ‘trojan horse’, killing the cell. Scientists say that this treatment on mice resulted in almost no metastasis in the lungs.

These cartoon images are showing cells that are rapidly going through mitosis. These can form tumors and potentially cancer. This article describes how scientists at the University of Delaware and the University at Chicago and finding new ways to eliminate liver cancer cells. They do this by seeing how cancer cells respond without hexokinase-2 which is an enzyme that helps process their food. They also tested the subtraction of hexokinase-2 as well another cancer drug for the liver called sorafenib on mice with tumors and found that this treatments worked better than either one by itself.

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Riya K

2/24/2018 07:19:49 pm

This article is about a study that has found a link between ovarian cancer and the MAGEC3 gene from a father's X chromosome. The study identified the gene by compairing grandaughter/grandmother pairs. The scientists theorized that since women have 2 X chromosomes but men only have one, a mutated gene would be shared twice as often between paternal grandmother/grandaughter pairs than pairs from the mother's side. It also found that women are twice as likely to develop ovarian cancer if their paternal grandmothers had it, compared to women whose maternal grandmothers had ovarian cancer. Researchers believe the information obtained from this study can help with diagnosing and identifying this type of cancer.

This news report says that Stanford University has found a possible cure for several types of cancer including breast, colon, and melanoma cancer. This cure injects immune stimulating agents into the targeted tumor, the agent then uses T-cells to destroy the tumor cells then attacks identical tumor cells around the body. This cure has been tested on rats and the tests have amazing results. Out of 90 rats, 87 rats have been completely cured of cancer with the remaining 3 cured after a second appliance of the cure. They are currently appending approval to test it on humans, whether this cure will work or not will probably remain a mystery for a while because this news report is pretty recent.

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Joshua M.

2/24/2018 07:30:09 pm

This article discusses a discovery made by a PhD student at Queen’s University, which is here in Ontario, that has to do with a chemical compound that could possibly “switch off” cancer cells and prevent them from spreading. The compound binds to a guanine quadruplex – a four-strand DNA structure that is associated with cancer – and can be used to target cancer cells to prevent them from growing and metastasizing. The student described her discovery with an analogy to a single-strand necklace, referring to it as a single stand of DNA, and beads moving down it until they hit a knot – the beads symbolizing cell machinery that will process parts of the DNA and translate it to proteins which will have cancerous effects in cells and tissues. The “knots” are formed before oncogenes, genes that produce proteins that can contribute to cancer development and metastasis and the “knots” can be untangled. The compound that was discovered will keep the “knots” from untangling keeping the cell machinery from reaching the section to grow and spread cancer cells and so far, results from the U.S. National Cancer Institute have been positive.

This comic depicts a normal cell talking to a cancer cell, which can be seen by the way the cancer cell is dividing uncontrollably. At first, the cancer cell is just annoying the normal cell, demonstrating what a tumor does, only taking up more space than it needs. But in the next panel, the healthy cell asks if the cancer cell stole its guacamole, which is showing how a cancer cell can cause problems for other, healthy cells. It is stealing its nutrients and is disrupting its normal functions, while dividing more and becoming more harmful to the organism its in.
Reference: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/aren-t-cancer-cells-the-worst/

The song, Quand C’est by Stromae, is a french song that talks about cancer. I remember hearing it when I was younger and thinking the title sounded like the english word cancer. I went and researched the lyrics and the song later and learned that the artist was singing about cancer. If you read the lyrics, you can see he sings about the uncertainty of cancer, the different areas it can affect, who it’ll affect etc. It was an interesting approach to raising awareness about cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJw4chksqM

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Jessica Y

2/24/2018 08:34:30 pm

Scientists can predict how cancer patients respond to therapy by growing their tumors in the laboratory. This can avoid the patient from any side-effects if the drug fails. A previous way to predict the patient’s response to treatment was growing the patient’s cancer in mice but that took a long time to get results. With mini-tumors grown in labs, results will arrive in a shorter time than using mouse models. This tool is a new way to test new drugs and find out why treatment does not work on cancers.

Since this week's topic is cancer, I found an article linking a father's X chromosome to ovarian cancer. Since males only have one X chromosome, if that chromosome has a mutated gene, it will be approximately twice as likely to pass down paternally. Whereas, females have 2 X chromosomes and thus if one has a mutated gene, the chance of that gene surfacing in offspring is less. The researchers mentioned in the article found that about 28.4% of granddaughters in paternal pairs developed ovarian cancer as compared to 13.9% of granddaughters in maternal pairs.

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